In the quiet hours before Asian markets opened, a familiar anxiety resurfaced — not about war or recession, but about the sustainability of a dream. The conviction that artificial intelligence would justify its staggering costs began to waver, sending technology shares lower across Wall Street and rippling through Asia-Pacific indices from Tokyo to Seoul. India's markets remained closed for Muharram, yet the overseas signal was clear enough: GIFT Nifty futures fell 105 points, and the question of whether debt-funded ambition can outpace its own weight was no longer being answered with easy con
GIFT Nifty slips 100 pts as Big Tech weakness, AI spending doubts rattle global markets
The narrative that had driven markets higher suddenly felt less certain.
Mark
So GIFT Nifty dropped 105 points. That's the signal for when Indian markets reopen. What actually triggered the selling?
Mimi
Investors woke up to a problem they'd been ignoring: the massive spending on AI infrastructure might not pay off. Apple announced price increases to cover chip costs, lost $250 billion in value in one day, and suddenly the whole edifice looked fragile.
Luke
But wait—Micron and SanDisk surged 16 and 22 percent. So semiconductor demand is still real. The question is whether it's the mega-cap tech companies that can't absorb the costs, or whether this is a genuine demand problem.
Mimi
That's the distinction the market was making. The companies building the chips for AI are doing fine. It's the companies that have to buy those chips and integrate them that are struggling.
Mark
And India's markets were closed, so this is all forward-looking. What does the domestic picture look like?
Mimi
Mixed. Foreign investors sold 384 crore rupees of Indian equities on Thursday. Domestic investors bought 5,748 crore. So there's a divergence—international money is nervous, domestic money is still confident.
Luke
Though year to date, foreign investors have sold nearly 3.46 lakh crore. That's a sustained outflow, not a one-day blip. The domestic buying is real, but it's not enough to offset the foreign selling.
Mark
What about the oil price relief? That seems like a genuine positive for India.
Mimi
It is. Brent crude fell to $75 a barrel, erasing the geopolitical risk premium from the Iran conflict. For an oil-importing economy, that means lower inflation and lower import costs.
Luke
Though we should be careful about calling that a "bright spot." Oil prices fell because supply concerns faded. That's not a structural improvement in India's economy—it's just that a temporary risk went away.
Mark
So the headline is: global tech anxiety, but India's domestic investors still buying, and oil prices helping with inflation. Is that the story?
Mimi
That's part of it. But the deeper story is that the AI spending narrative that drove markets higher all year is now being questioned in real time. We're seeing which companies can actually sustain it.
Luke
And we don't yet know the answer. One day of selling doesn't prove anything. We need to see whether this is a correction or the beginning of a repricing.
Le Pouls
- Apple's 6.1% single-day collapse — erasing $250 billion in market value after announcing price hikes on iPads and MacBooks — became the sharpest symbol of a technology sector straining under its own cost structure.
- The Nasdaq fell, Microsoft, Nvidia, and Alphabet declined in tandem, and Nasdaq futures slipped further in Asian trade, suggesting the selling pressure had not yet found its floor.
- Asia-Pacific markets retreated sharply from record highs, with South Korea's Kospi down 3.5% and Japan's Nikkei dropping roughly 3%, as the mood that had lifted global equities to historic peaks reversed almost overnight.
- A counternarrative emerged in semiconductors — Micron surged 16%, SanDisk jumped 22% — signaling that AI demand itself was not in doubt, only the ability of the largest firms to absorb its costs without strain.
- Crude oil's slide toward $75 per barrel, erasing the geopolitical risk premium built during the Iran conflict, offered India and other oil-importing economies a quiet but meaningful cushion against the broader turbulence.
In the quiet hours before Asian markets opened, a familiar anxiety resurfaced — not about war or recession, but about the sustainability of a dream. The conviction that artificial intelligence would justify its staggering costs began to waver, sending technology shares lower across Wall Street and rippling through Asia-Pacific indices from Tokyo to Seoul. India's markets remained closed for Muharram, yet the overseas signal was clear enough: GIFT Nifty futures fell 105 points, and the question of whether debt-funded ambition can outpace its own weight was no longer being answered with easy confidence.
Friday morning opened with caution. GIFT Nifty futures dropped 105 points to 24,010 — a 0.44% decline — as traders absorbed a night of turbulence that had begun on Wall Street and spread steadily eastward. Indian equity markets were closed for Muharram, but the overseas signals were unmistakable: the confidence that had driven technology stocks to record heights was cracking.
The fracture had a specific shape. Apple fell 6.1% after announcing price increases on iPads and MacBooks to offset rising chip costs, wiping roughly $250 billion from its market value in a single session. Microsoft, Nvidia, and Alphabet also declined as investors openly questioned whether the debt-funded buildout of AI infrastructure could be sustained. The Nasdaq fell 0.46%, even as the Dow eked out a modest gain and the S&P 500 barely moved. The story that artificial intelligence would unlock boundless value had not collapsed — but it had become, for the first time in some time, genuinely uncertain.
Not every corner of the technology world suffered. Micron Technology surged nearly 16% on stronger-than-expected revenue forecasts, and SanDisk jumped 22%. Semiconductor firms tied directly to AI demand continued to attract capital. What had shifted was the belief that the largest technology companies could absorb the costs of that demand without visible strain.
Across Asia, the caution spread quickly. The MSCI Asia-Pacific index fell 1.7% from a record high touched just days earlier. Japan's Nikkei dropped around 3%, South Korea's Kospi declined 3.5%, and Hong Kong and mainland Chinese indices also traded lower. Nasdaq futures slipped a further 0.6% during Asian hours.
In India, Thursday's domestic session had already been subdued — the Sensex gained just 89 points and the Nifty 34, while midcap stocks and metals finished in the red. Foreign institutional investors sold 384 crore rupees in Indian equities, continuing a year-to-date net selling trend approaching 3.46 lakh crore rupees. Domestic institutions continued to absorb that pressure, with net purchases of 5,748 crore rupees on the day.
One counterweight emerged from the commodity markets. Brent crude slipped toward $75 per barrel, on track for a weekly decline of roughly 7%, as tanker traffic through the Strait of Hormuz resumed and the geopolitical risk premium built during the Iran conflict quietly dissolved. For India, falling oil prices meant lower import costs and reduced inflationary pressure — a modest but real relief against the anxiety rippling through global technology stocks.
The morning's decline in GIFT Nifty captured something larger than a single day's movement: the moment when a market's foundational assumption — that AI spending will pay for itself — stopped being taken for granted.
The morning opened with caution. GIFT Nifty, the futures contract that signals how Indian markets will move when they reopen, dropped 105 points to 24,010 on Friday—a loss of 0.44 percent—as traders absorbed a night of turbulence across global exchanges. The decline reflected a specific anxiety: investors were no longer certain that the enormous sums being poured into artificial intelligence infrastructure could actually justify their cost. Indian equity markets themselves remained closed for Muharram, but the overseas signals were unmistakable.
The trouble had started on Wall Street. The Dow Jones Industrial Average managed a modest gain of 0.14 percent, and the S&P 500 essentially flatlined, but the Nasdaq Composite fell 0.46 percent as large technology companies came under fresh selling pressure. Apple bore the brunt of it, tumbling 6.1 percent after announcing price increases for iPads and MacBooks to offset rising memory and storage chip costs. That single move erased roughly $250 billion from the company's market value. Microsoft, Nvidia, and Alphabet also declined as investors openly questioned whether the debt-funded spending spree on AI infrastructure could be sustained at current levels. The narrative that had driven markets higher—that artificial intelligence would unlock boundless value—suddenly felt less certain.
Yet the picture was not uniformly bleak. Micron Technology surged nearly 16 percent after forecasting stronger-than-expected revenue. SanDisk jumped 22 percent. Qualcomm, Western Digital, and Seagate all posted sharp gains. The semiconductor firms most directly tied to AI demand were still attracting money. What had shifted was the confidence that the largest technology companies could absorb the costs without strain.
Across Asia, the caution spread. The MSCI index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan fell 1.7 percent, retreating from a record high it had touched just days earlier. Japan's Nikkei dropped around 3 percent. South Korea's Kospi declined 3.5 percent. Hong Kong's Hang Seng and China's CSI300 also traded lower. Nasdaq futures slipped 0.6 percent in Asian trade, suggesting that pressure on technology stocks would likely persist when US markets opened again.
Back in India, Thursday's session had been subdued even before the global weakness intensified. The Sensex rose just 89 points to close at 77,080.47, while the Nifty gained 34 points to end at 24,056. Broader market segments underperformed: the Nifty Midcap index finished in the red, and the Nifty Metal index fell around 1 percent as commodity prices weakened. Foreign institutional investors sold Indian equities worth 384 crore rupees on June 25, extending their cautious stance. Domestic institutional investors, by contrast, continued to buy, with net purchases of 5,748 crore rupees. Year to date, foreign investors had remained net sellers of nearly 3.46 lakh crore rupees, while domestic investors had accumulated 4.57 lakh crore rupees in shares.
One bright spot emerged from the commodity markets. Crude oil prices eased again on Friday, headed for steep weekly losses as supply concerns faded following the resumption of tanker traffic through the Strait of Hormuz. Brent crude slipped 0.25 percent to around $75 per barrel, while US West Texas Intermediate traded below $72. Both benchmarks were on track for weekly declines of about 7 percent, despite a brief rebound after a cargo vessel was struck near Oman on Thursday. The geopolitical risk premium that had accumulated during the Iran conflict had effectively been erased. For oil-importing economies like India, the falling prices meant relief from inflationary pressure and lower import costs—a counterweight to the anxiety rippling through technology stocks.
The morning's decline in GIFT Nifty thus captured a moment of genuine tension in global markets: the question of whether artificial intelligence spending could be justified was no longer rhetorical, and the answer traders were pricing in was no longer automatic yes.
Citations marquantes
Investors questioned whether heavy debt-funded spending on artificial intelligence infrastructure can be sustained— Market sentiment reflected in trading patterns
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